THE LaTrobe Valley in Victoria is famous for its huge seams of brown coal,
over sixty metres thick. The seams constitute a massive energy resource. But
being about two-thirds water, the coal is a poor fuel. Burning it doesn’t
produce much heat—about 20 per cent of the amount per kilogramme from good
black coal. Another drawback to Victoria’s brown coal is that it produces
enormous amounts of carbon dioxide per unit of useful power.

A new energy technology—high efficiency solid oxide fuel cells—may
overcome these problems by turning fuel into electricity much more efficiently
with less pollution.

The cells are being developed in the LaTrobe Valley town of Morwell by a
company called Ceramic Fuel Cells. The latest edition of Ascent, a
magazine produced by the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism, has a
progress report. The company is in the third year of a five-year, &dollar;30
million R&D programme, employing nearly sixty graduates from a range of
science-based disciplines.

How the cells work sounds straightforward. A thin sheet of modified zirconium
oxide is coated on both sides with porous electrodes. Air flows through the cell
on one side of the sheet and fuel, normally natural gas, on the other. At
temperatures near 1000° C oxygen ions migrate across the cell from the air
side to the fuel side, producing an electric current. The cells have been
performing well at temperatures above 900° C. But this temperature must be
lowered to increase the operating life of the cells. Research is underway to
reduce the working temperature to below 850° C.

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The process turns fuel into electricity with an efficiency of up to 70 per
cent, compared with about 40 per cent for the steam turbines in conventional
power stations. The cells can be connected in modules to suit the scale of local
power needs. They could potentially provide for a range of applications, from
small remote power supplies for country properties to full-scale power stations.
The process yields heat as a by-product which can be sold to heat buildings or
to provide hot water if a suitable customer is nearby.

Ceramic Fuel Cells is a consortium jointly operated by an impressive list of
partners: CSIRO, BHP, the Energy R&D Corporation, the Strategic Industry
Research Foundation, various Australian electricity authorities and the
Electricity Corporation of New Zealand. The partners hope the cells will be in
commercial production by about the year 2000.

The company’s market research has identified a huge demand for the cells in
the Asia-Pacific region for efficient small-scale generating capacity. But I trust
that the home market is not ignored. Some electricity bodies are still talking
about big coal-fired power stations or politically unpopular transmission lines.
Siting small generators near the demand for power makes more sense than building
big power stations where the coal is and transmitting the electricity hundreds
of kilometres.

AUSTRALIAN scientists are forever trying to make their mark on the
world stage. Science graduate Chrissy Lane from Queensland has certainly done
that, but not by way of learned papers or rigorous discourse. She has become
this year’s Miss Nude World and Penthouse Pet of the Year. I suspect
Lane may be the first Australian scientist to have achieved such accolades.

THE FISHING industry is in trouble on both sides of the Tasman for
the same reason—the unintended impacts on other species as a result of
trawling the ocean.

In New Zealand, the squid fishery near the Auckland Islands, about 900
kilometres south of New Zealand, has been shut down by the government after
three months of fishing. Too many sealions were being drowned in squid nets. One
of the innocent victims was the world’s rarest sealion, the Hooker’s Sealion,
found only in NZ waters. At least 100 were killed, according to the NZ Forest
and Bird Protection Society. The breeding stock may be badly affected, as more
than 80 of the casualties were females.

The society is calling for a 100 kilometre marine mammal sanctuary around the
islands with trawling banned in that zone. The industry accepts that there
should be a limit on the number of sealion deaths but it does not agree with the
exclusion zone.

Australia’s problem is international in scope. The US has banned imports of
Australian prawns because it claims there has been no effective action to
prevent turtles being killed by trawling for prawns.

A 1995 court case in the US required Australia to reduce turtle mortality by
1 May or face an import ban. US prawn trawlers have to use turtle exclusion
devices, which permit the animals to escape from prawn nets. The Humane Society
has been urging the Australian government to apply the same rule to the local
prawn industry. Now their hand may be forced by the commercial pressure of the
American market.

Serious problems plague the fishing industry in general, according to a
leading Australian marine scientist. Meryl Williams, a former director of the
Australian Institute of Marine Science, now heads the International Centre for
Living Aquatic Resources based in the Philippines. Williams warned last week
that the world fish catch is declining because of over-fishing, pollution and the
destruction of marine habitat.

The total fish catch peaked in 1989 and has declined about 5 per cent since
then. Williams believes that about a quarter of the world’s commercial fish
species are now over-exploited, with another 38 per cent at the limit of
sustainable yield.

It is a grim warning. About a fifth of the world’s people rely on fish as their
main source of protein. Williams has called for a major international effort to
develop aquaculture in the hope of taking the pressure off the oceans. It is a
warning that governments—indeed all of us—can ill afford to
ignore.

FLYING foxes, also known as fruit bats, may be part of the mysterious equine
morbillivirus (EMV) puzzle. In two separate incidences in Queensland in 1994,
EMV killed 16 horses and two horse handlers. But the origin of the virus is far
from clear.

The Department of Primary Industries in Queensland has tested 5264 blood
samples from 46 species of domestic animals and wildlife. The DPI announced last
week that all were negative except for two of four common species of the flying
fox. Both species—the black and spectacled—raised antibodies to the
EMV. DPI scientists are now determining if the paramyxovirus found in the flying
fox and the EMV are the same or similar. Attempts will be made to isolate the
virus from other colonies of flying fox from a range of locations. If the flying
fox is the viral host, this will be a big step in solving the mystery.

RELATIONS between Australia and New Zealand have been strained by quarantine
measures aimed at containing fruit fly infestations. Late last year there was an
outbreak of the papaya fruit fly in Queensland, leading to New Zealand banning
imports of fruit from the affected area. The ban has since been lifted.

Now the problem is reversed. The Mediterranean fruit fly has been discovered
near Auckland. Australian authorities have banned imports of fruit that could
harbour the pest: kiwi fruit, avocados, stone and citrus fruits, and apples. The
ban applies to produce grown within 80 kilometres of the outbreak.

The ban has been imposed initially for three months. NZ authorities are
trying to persuade the Australian quarantine officials to reduce the size of the
area for which restrictions apply. A lot of money is at stake. Last year’s
exports of fruit and vegetables to Australia were worth more than A&dollar;100
million. That represents about a quarter of all overseas produce imported into
Australia.

READERS of the Sydney Morning Herald have reason to be confused. On
10 April a story was headed: Virus is ruled out as threat to frogs. On 9 May,
the paper ran a second story on the same topic. This time the heading was: Virus
linked to dying frogs. Virologist Alex Hyatt was mentioned in both stories. But
he is in the US and not contactable according to his laboratory. An explanation
will have to wait.

HIGH expectations surround a medical imaging training centre opened
this month in the Melbourne suburb of Nunawading. Agfa-Gavaert has invested
&dollar;3 million in the centre, one of only five of its kind in the world. Agfa
will train 40 specialists there this year and another 150 more over the next
three years. It is hoped that the centre will become the leading one of its kind
in the Asia-Pacific region.